


FR3AKZ: This Ain't Your Grandma's Sideshow

by madame_faust



Category: Le Fantôme de l'Opéra | Phantom of the Opera - Gaston Leroux
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-13 19:44:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,310
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21003158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madame_faust/pseuds/madame_faust
Summary: A reimagined introduction of Erik and the Daroga which takes place at a modern American freak show on Halloween night. Written as part of POTO 13 Nights of Halloween.





	FR3AKZ: This Ain't Your Grandma's Sideshow

**FR3AKZ: **_**This Ain't Your Grandma's Sideshow **_was offering a two-for-one ticket special ("With half off for conjoined twins!") in honor of Halloween. The performance took place in one of those sketchy outdoor venues that cropped up from time to time in big cities among larger and more elite theatres. A pile of rickety black scaffolding for a stage, light and sound rigs that looked perilously close to collapsing; Coachella this was not. Any tents or sleeping backs were left behind by the city's disgruntled homeless who had been displaced for the event and definitely didn’t come with complementary wifi or a butler. 

Dalir Mazandarani bought his ticket and stood in a crowd made up mostly of college students dressed in an assortment of black denim, mesh, and pleather, as though they were all following some kind of agreed-upon dress code. The late-October air was chilly, but given the fact that everyone around him seemed to be drunk or high or both, no one seemed to feel the chill. The press of bodies, close together, swaying to an unholy mix of Rob Zombie, GWAR, and Wolfmother, gave rise to a distinct smell that could only come from skin-to-skin contact of people who eschewed traditional hygiene products.

He would have left - hell, he wouldn't have come at all - but he were there on a assignment. Talent-scouting. If he'd been skeptical when he was asked to make the trip to the vacant lot turned performance space, it was nothing to what he was feeling as he hunched his shoulders and planted his feet to avoid being knocked to the ground as the people around him started slam dancing. 

"Watch it!" he said sharply when a beefy white dude (with so much metal in his face that Dalir figured he hadn't been on a plane in twenty years) collided with his shoulder. 

He braced for a fight, but the guy just smiled apologetically and shouted, "Sorry, man!" over the screeching din of the music. 

Dalir hunched his shoulders and backed away from the ever-expanding mosh pit, taking his cell out of his pocket to text his boss.

**I hate to say it, but I think your lead was literally tripping when he recommended this guy.**

No reply. Typical; Nasir was a results-oriented boss and tended to ignore anything that didn't align with his master plan. It was a wild combination of cock-eyed optimism wrapped up in micromanagement with a touch of benevolent narcissism. It was a combination that served him well so far; The Palace was a performing arts complex that was consistently in the black, not forced to rely on the unreliability of grants or bequests to make ends meet. Since he'd taken over the management of the place six years ago, they'd never had to dip into their endowment once. 

Still, Dalir reflected as he folded his eyes and waited for the show to get underway, even managerial geniuses had their off-days. This, he concluded, was one of them. Maybe he'd manage to get out before midnight, catch the end of the Cushing/Lee movie marathon the classic film channel was running for the holiday. 

Oddly, the thought didn't fill him with satisfaction, any more than the idea of staying to the conclusion of the show did. Catching the tail-end of a technicolor vampire movie while eating his way through whatever was left in the 'Please take one' bowl on his porch (probably Almond Joy and he hated coconut) was fairly depressing. At least talent scouting got him out of the house. 

Finally the music quieted and the MC stepped out onto the stage - he was a _big_ dude, and Dalir was a little concerned the scaffolding wasn't going to hold - and started his opening patter.

He was dressed like Beetlejuice, down to a green-tint to his skin, but he spoke with all the cheerful aplomb of an old-timey carnie. He welcomed everyone to the venue, hyped up the crowd with shouts about what sexy little freaks they all were, then the guy who had slam-danced into Dalir earlier shouted, "DO TIM CURRY!"

Apparently **FR3AKZ** had quite the devoted following and the MC was known for his gift of mimicry.

"It's great to be here," he said, affecting a throaty English accent that, admittedly, was a perfect Tim Curry, "with you young witches, on this fabulous night! Remember, girls, show the world! Let them know it's Halloween!"

"HIT IT!" The crowd shouted, which was apparently the cue for the opening act. 

Carlos the Human Block Head was a thoroughly tattooed guy with huge gauges in his ears from which he hung cinderblocks, swinging them around as the crowed roared in approval. He lifted a brick off the ground through a piercing in his tongue and, for his final and greatest act, drove a nail into his sinuses. Dalir felt vaguely sick watching the whole thing, but the crowd went wild. 

After Carlos, it was Gina the Geek's turn on the stage. She was dressed like a stereotypical librarian, right down to the Coke bottle glasses, but her actions were anything but demur. She chomped down on glass, and let a snake writhe all over her body, at one point putting its head in her mouth. She removed it and cracked some kind of joke about being a vegan, which the audience seemed to think was hilariously funny. Dalir looked away when some roadies brought out a bed of nails for her to lie on, concentrating on his phone, hoping against hope that Nasir texted back, saying he could just leave.

The show was everything Dalir expected: cheap, tawdry, and not a little gross. Suitable entertainment for a crowd of stoners who prided themselves on being misfits, but not exactly the kind of thing that had any place within twenty feet of The Palace. The closest they ever got to anything approaching this kind of entertainment were their yearly Cirque du Soleil bookings and none of them ever put nails in their faces.

Amazingly, there was a text, but it was woefully short and said only: **Wait for Cadaver Jack.**

Just a reiteration of the master plan. Typical Nasir. 

Dalir sighed and replaced his phone. There were fire-breathers. Sword swallowers. Even a contortionist. The night dragged on, the crowd got louder and more fragrant as the witching hour approached.

A distant church's bell dolefully struck midnight and the power to the stage lights chose that time to go out. Dalir was relieved; he didn't relish the thought of picking his way through the crowd in the pitch blackness, but it was late and he was tired. The porch pirates probably nabbed all his candy as well as the bowl it came in, but he could care less. Now he could just go to bed and crash when he got home. He turned in expectation of following the crowd back out to the street, but no one was moving. It was as though they'd expected this to happen. As though they were waiting. 

The church bell continued to peal the hour. _Bong. Bong. Bong._ The bell struck the hour, but then another bell came on its heels, closer, over the sound system, and struck Thirteen.

Then the lights came back on. In the brief blackout the stage had been transformed into a cemetery, complete with mausoleum, headstones, fog that blew onto the crowd in waves, and in the center of the stage a tall black coffin slowly started to open.

The cheer that went up left Dalir's ears ringing. Out of the coffin emerged a tall, wasted figure of a man with close-cropped dark hair. He was wearing black pinstripe pants, black boots, and suspenders, but no shirt; he had an open vest over his emaciated torso. A black mask covered the entire face, from brow to chin, with no opening for the mouth. For a split second, Dalir was sure he was some kind of puppet; no way any real man's arms were that skinny. But he moved too fluidly, stalking back and forth in front of the stage like panther. As the crowd exploded in another round of adoring applause.

Then the noise cut out so abruptly, it was like a switch had been flipped. The figure - Cadaver Jack - raised the violin he held in one of his hands to his chin. The bow touched the strings. And then there was only music. 

It was a bizarre mash-up of sound, a strange mix that shouldn't have worked: here a snippet of Barber, Shostakovich, Paganini, Bartok, even some Lindsay Sterling-style arrangements of popular pieces, but altogether it was incredible. The musical skill to create the arrangement in a way that made sense was astonishing enough on its own, let alone the ability to play it all. Yet he did. At a fever-pitch, with an intensity that commanded the crowd to be still and _listen_. And they obeyed.

Dalir wasn't sure he breathed the entire time the man played. The skill, the dynamics, the tonality he achieved was incredible. This was no tawdry act from a street performer, designed to shock, or even a busker scratching out 'Bad Romance' for quarters._ This_ was a talented musician, an artist. The Palace had seen Joshua Bell, Ray Chen, and Hilary Hahn in concerts over the past five years. They couldn't even touch this guy. It was one of the most incredibly performances Dalir had ever seen. And they were in a vacant lot.

At the dizzying, breathless conclusion, the musician stopped. The sound hung in the air. For a second, everything was utterly still and silent. It was as though the city itself held its breath.

Then, without giving anyone time to reflect on the magnitude of what they'd experienced, he reached up with one of his long-fingered hands, (_Those hands ought to be insured_, Dalir thought, dazed) and plucked off the black mask.

Cadaver Jack, they called him, and now Dalir knew why. At first, he assumed the name was a gimicky reference to how skinny he was, but when the mask came off, he drew breath so hard and deep that he choked on it. He had meandered to the back of the crowd, but even from thirty feet away, the effect of his face wasn't lost on him. It was utterly grotesque - too grotesque to be the work of make-up, which added to the horror. People could look at gore in film and television with the subconscious reassurance that none of it was real. Here, there was none of that. That was the underlying perversion and constant thrill of the freak show: all of it was real. Flesh and bone and blood.

As beautiful as his playing had been, that was how hideous his face was. It was impossible to tell how old Cadaver Jack happened to be because his face truly looked like a withered corpse; devoid of most soft tissue, a wasted expanse of pale skin, taut over bone and muscle. The nose was a gaping black hole, above which two shadowed and fathomless pits for eyes under a brow that could have served as a model for Harryhausen. The thin white lips were drawn back in a sneer, either of mockery or approval, Dalir didn't know, as all around him the crowd whipped itself up again into rapturous cheers and applause. 

"WE LOVE YOU, JACK!" a woman near the front of the crowd screamed. He bowed and blew her a kiss off the tips of his long, fleshless fingers.

"SING, JACK! SING!" A chant started up, thrumming around Dalir with the regular pulse of a heartbeat. Sing. Sing. Sing.

A wailing siren pierced through the din of the crowd. An official-sounding voice amplified by a megaphone called out: "THIS IS THE POLICE. WE HAVE RECEIVED A NOISE COMPLAINT. ALL YOU SEXY LITTLE FREAKS MUST DEPART FROM THE PREMISES IMMEDIATELY. YOU'RE DISTURBING THE PEACE."

It was a part of the act. The sirens and the noise. The crowd booed and called for Jack.

He smiled at them, a creepy rictus grin. Then there was a brief, blinding flash. A puff of smoke. And when it cleared, he was gone.

The MC appeared, carrying a megaphone in one hand and an old-fashioned billy club in the other. 

"Show's over, folks!" he said, and added through the megaphone, over the disappointed shouts of the crowd, "ALWAYS LEAVE THEM WANTING MORE!"

Slowly, people started ambling off. Dalir stayed behind as the crowd thinned. It was well past midnight now, but any thoughts of crashing in his bed had vanished. He had to find Cadaver Jack. 

A few of the performers started mingling with the remaining fans, finding friends, chatting in small groups, signing their autographs onto various body parts. The roadies started clearing out the sound equipment. No Jack.

Dalir was about to approach the MC, who was letting some girls have turns screaming into the megaphone, when he saw a tall, thin figure making its way toward the street. Unlike the others who came out in their stage clothes, or more obvious Halloween costumes they'd changed into after their acts were over, this one was dressed sensibly for the weather. Blue jeans, a sweatshirt, a knit cap, and a heavy wool coat. The face was shadowed, but Dalir was sure that was him. He was carrying a violin case under his arm.

Jogging to catch up to him, Dalir called out, "Jack!"

The figure didn't slow. "I don't do autographs."

Instantly, Dalir understood why the crowd was clamoring for a song; that one clipped sentence was delivered in a low, rich voice, an incredibly contrast to the screaming that made up the preshow mix.

"I don't want an autograph," Dalir said, actively running now; Jack could move fast on those long legs of his. "I'm from The Palace Theatre. I've got a business proposition for you."

Jack stopped. He turned around. Dalir wasn't a short guy, but he had to crane his neck back a bit to look him in the eyes. The face was less off-putting now, with the addition of the knitted beanie and a false nose that almost looked convincing in the street lights. This close, he could see that Jack had a hare-lip scar. He could even make out his shadowed eyes; light brown, so light that the street lights caught them in a way that made them look gold. 

Jack paused and looked Dalir over, before he cut his eyes to the side, fingers tightening on his violin case. "I'm not interested."

"You haven't even heard what I - "

"I'm _not_," Jack said more firmly, "interested. Thanks, but no thanks. Good night. Happy Halloween, even."

He turned to go, but Dalir grabbed the sleeve of his coat, latching onto Jack's bony elbow through the layers of fabric. The golden eyes gazed warily down and the muscles in the arm tightened under Dalir's grip; he held on tighter.

"You've got to be kidding me," Dalir said in disbelief, digging around in his pocket with his free hand for a business card. "You - look. I'm not a musician. I don't have talent, but I _know_ talent. You're wasted there. You can't honestly tell me you're happy with that, doing midnight shows for drunks where the act before you is a guy who drinks lighter fluid."

Jack wrenched his arm away, frowning. "First of all, Seth doesn't drink lighter fluid, he uses paraffin because he's a fucking professional. Secondly, shitty attitudes like that, as though good music is reserved for rich assholes with trust funds and offshore bank accounts, as though their ears are somehow inherently better than everyone else's is one of _many_ reasons why I'm not interested.

"Besides," Jack added with a hint of mischievous good humor in his exquisite voice, "you can't honestly tell me that some of your fine trust fund babies haven't been blitzed at the symphony." 

“I mean, I _could_,” Dalir said, a bit of a teasing note entering his own voice. “But that would be a lie.” 

Jack smiled, not the creepy mocking grin of earlier, but a gentle smile. Dalir smiled back. 

“So,” he said, leaning back a little and surveying Dalir more closely, “you don’t _have_ talent, but you _know _talent. Are you a manager?”

Dalir shook his head. “I’m not an agent, I’m in charge of bookings for the venues. And I oversee facilities use.” 

“And part of your job is attending, ‘midnight shows for drunks,’?” he asked, raising an eyebrow coolly. 

Dalir chuckled and shrugged, “Tonight I’m kind of a gofer.” 

“Wow, I guess I should be honored that such an illustrious personage as The Palace’s _gofer_ came to watch my show and offer me a gig,” he said, visibly rolling his deep-set eyes.

Dalir held his hands up defensively. “Hey, I’m just doing my job – “ 

“No, no, I get it,” Jack interrupted, less sarcastically. Then he smiled again. “I mean, I feel like I should be allowed to be a bougie fuck if you are.”

“Damn,” Dalir replied. “That was cold, but I guess I deserved it.” 

“You definitely did,” Jack agreed cheerfully. There was an awkward pause until he added, “So…I don’t do this – like, I don’t _ever_ do this – but it’s freezing out here and…do you want to get a drink? Or a coffee?” 

_Did_ he? Dalir didn’t really drink and ever since he turned thirty, caffeine consumption after 5PM meant he couldn’t sleep until well after midnight…but then, it was _well_ after midnight already, wasn’t it? It was technically morning. Just _really_ early morning.

“Sure,” Dalir nodded. “There’s a twenty-four hour diner a few blocks down, they make killer pancakes.”

“Breakfast?” Jack asked, sounding impressed. “Wow. Usually, I have to do a _lot_ more than reject a job offer for a guy to offer me breakfast. Uh. Not that. Um. You were…not that it’s like _that_.”

The appraising look was back in his eyes; though Dalir was shorter than him, he was a lot broader. Tougher looking too. And the street was fairly deserted; there were certainly more things to be scared of on this Halloween night than ghouls and goblins.

Dalir smiled in a non-threatening way, “I mean, I’m still going to try to hire you. Consider it a working breakfast.”

Jack paused, considering. “Sure. Why not? I mean, I’m pretty sure the Hammer Dracula marathon is over and the neighborhood kids have probably stolen my candy bowl. Why not?”

Huh. Apparently Dalir and Cadaver Jack had more in common than he realized.

“Cool,” Dalir said, inclining his head in the direction he wanted Jack to follow.

Adjusting his grip on the violin, he did, and after another awkward pause said, “Um. My name is Erik, by the way. Most people think it’s Jack, but it’s…not.”

“I figured it was a stage name,” Dalir lied, (okay, okay, he figured the guy’s parents hadn’t named him ‘Cadaver’ Anything, regardless of how he looked, but figured the ‘Jack’ part was legit). “I’m Dalir. I don’t remember if I introduced myself.”

“You didn’t,” Erik informed him immediately. “You were too busy giving me a really aggressive and judgmental sales pitch.”

He stopped walking and Dalir stopped as well, worried that he was thinking better of this breakfast thing and was about to head home, but he stuck his right hand out.

“So, in the interest of starting fresh,” he said. “Hi. My name is Erik. I’m an ugly anti-capitalist who plays the violin.”

Dalir grinned and shook his head; Erik’s fingers were icy cold, but he didn’t pull away. “Dalir. I’m a bougie fuck.”

Erik laughed – it was a really great laugh. A warm, sincere friendly laugh that belied his wasted appearance. A young laugh; Dalir would be shocked to learn he was over thirty. “It’s nice to meet you, Dalir.”

“You too, Erik.”

**Author's Note:**

> The MC is directly quoting Tim Curry's monologue from _The Worst Witch_, a classic.


End file.
